I Wear My Heart Upon My Tennis Shoes
by egyouppt
Summary: -spoilers for 2x21 "Funeral"- what's in Finn's mind from the moment he realizes he's tethered to Rachel onward


**A/N:** _I guess I suck at staying away from fanfic, but seriously, how could I not write something after tonight's episode? sajkhfa. also for those of you who review this or have reviewed anything else I've written lately and haven't received a reply, I am truly sorry. the site isn't letting me reply at all and it's awful. that being said, your feedback is greatly appreciated._

_disclaimer: don't own Glee, just a box of tissues that I still need to wipe away the tears I shed at "Funeral."_

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><p>Mr. Schue says that thing for Coach Sylvester about being tethered to someone no matter what and Quinn is holding his hand and he knows…it's just wrong. And though a part of him has known that since the beginning, it's impossible to ignore that part any longer. He <em>loves<em>Rachel. And he still loves Quinn, but it's not the same. Nothing is the same as Rachel and he knows it's not fair on him or Rachel or Quinn for them to keep being together. And he knows it'll hurt, but it's gotta be done.

And the funeral is so beautiful and heartbreaking and he just can't bear it any longer. Of course he knows how it feels to lose someone—both because of his dad and because of this idea of losing Rachel. If she ever pulled away from him completely, he doesn't know he could even handle it. But before he thinks too much on that, he's giving Coach Sylvester a one-armed hug before exiting the building and climbing into his truck, wiping his eyes.

He's waiting for Quinn and his heart is pounding nervously because this is it and he really needs her to understand. He knows she really does care about him, underneath all the guises of being popular and prom royalty—she has a real heart. But he doesn't belong to it just like she doesn't belong to his. That spot will always be reserved by someone else, someone he's finally coming to accept has it.

She's a little late, but it doesn't matter 'cause he's still wiping at his eyes like some pathetic loser or whatever and she asks him why he's crying. And he somehow manages to get the words out. "Because I'm breaking up with you."

Of course her first question is if it's about Rachel—and yeah, it is. But he knows she must have known all along who held his heart, but they both put themselves through the pain of being in a relationship anyway. And even after he'd humiliated her and ruined her prom night, she still clung to him and he let her because it was easier than thinking about why he did what he did.

He tries to explain it to her—all of it. How he thought he could fix it all, how he should have known better. How he _doesn't_ feel tethered to her. They've _never_ been that couple. The one who loves and depends on each other no matter what, supports and believes in each other no matter what. And it's not like they can be now. If he'd never met Rachel, maybe they could have made it work; he doesn't know. But he _did_ meet Rachel and he _did _fall in love with her and that's not something that just goes away. He would know because he tried to make it. He tried to take away all that pain and confusion, but in the end it still didn't work.

So he keeps trying to explain and it's like it goes right over her head. She tells him they aren't breaking up. "I'll deal with your confusion," she tells him. What she doesn't seem to get is that he's _not_confused. Not anymore. The confusion led to dating her in the first place. The realization is what's leading him to break up with her, but it has to be done. And she brings up the Prom Queen thing again and it's like another shard of ice has been stabbed through his heart.

"Don't you _feel_ anything anymore?" he shouts. There's so much more he wants to elaborate on. Didn't she feel anything when they sang together and realized they just lack the musical chemistry? Or how about when he ditched her at Prom to try to beat up another girl's date? How did she not even break up with him on the spot? He doesn't know these things and while it would be nice to say it's because she loves him that much, he knows it's not. Because they've never been _that_couple either. But now she's crying and fuck, this isn't what he wants, either. He doesn't want to hurt her—he's never wanted that. "I still love you," he tries, but she screams at him not to touch her and runs out of his truck.

He doesn't blame her; can't blame her. He tried to love her—he _did._But…but he just can't love her like she needs to be loved. He does hope someone will because everyone deserves that, but he can't be that person. And he also just can't go home yet. Crying while driving is probably a bad idea anyway, but more than that, he just needs the time to himself without Kurt or even his mom or step-dad. Or even Rachel, who he sees leaving the funeral home, her head tucked down. He thinks he sees a smile or something on her lips, which is weird because they're at a funeral, but she's always found the bright side in pretty much everything, so who even knows.

He wipes his nose on the sleeve of his suit jacket, unconcerned about germs or whatever the fuck else. It doesn't matter. All that matters now is that he get his act together and prove to Quinn that she'll be okay and he really does appreciate her even if he can't be what she needs. And to prove to Rachel that it's been her all along and he's been stupid and an ass to try and deny or avoid the truth. It's always been her. Or almost always. But even before he'd broken up with Quinn the first time, and before his feelings for Rachel were as strong as they are now, he'd always felt inexplicably pulled to her. And now he knows it's not just him. It's not just some weird side effect of something nor is it a lingering feeling or lack of closure.

It's just love because it's apparently that way for everyone and oh _God_he's been such an idiot. He's probably messed up everything. And while he spent so much time being messed up himself, he didn't think as much about all the other people he was and would be messing up. He knows Rachel's pretty messed up—she made that painfully clear when he asked her about Jesse. And now Quinn is probably messed up and his whole life is just a series of messes, but he doesn't know how to stop it all.

He takes a deep breath and looks at his shaking hands, setting them on the steering wheel. As much as he just wants to drive to Rachel's and tell her he loves her, he knows he can't. Not yet. He needs something bigger and better and he needs to go home first before his mom gets worried. And he needs to just sit in the shower and cry some more and let it all out.

That's one of his main problems. He just bottles everything up and represses it until it gets to be too much. But now it _is_too much and he's going to let it be in the hopes of finally overcoming all of this shit. So yeah, he'll sit in the shower with the water scalding his back and cry some more—and for once, he doesn't even give a damn if it's girly or whatever. He needs it.

And then he needs to get some sleep and hope his dreams or subconscious or whatever help him organize his thoughts because he's pretty sure he can't do it by himself.

He needs _her_too. And needs her to use her magic powers of understanding to try to get why he's been such a dick the last few months. Because it's never been intentional. Just sometimes everything that's happened to him and the fact that he still hasn't dealt with it all yet gets to him. And he knows now that that's not an okay way to live, so he's gonna try to get out of that if he can. But he needs her to get it, regardless of whether or not she's ready for him again—and to be fair, she shouldn't have to be.

But this isn't about him and just what he wants right now. It's just about making her understand that he at least knows. Because she deserves to know that he knows and that he loves her, no matter what. And he'll always be tethered to her and that's the best he has to explain why he still acts like the jealous boyfriend and beats up her prom dates and stuff. As well as why he always knew what she was thinking and why dating her was really just so great and the bad parts didn't matter that much in comparison. It's so easy to forgive the first person you love—she'd told him something like that. He just hadn't told her that Quinn really hadn't been his first love—not the kind of love she was talking about anyway.

Slowly, he pulls out of the parking lot and makes the lonely drive home. And he stays in the shower until he runs out of hot water, even though he knows Kurt will probably kill him for it. He doesn't care that much though because this is kinda more important than Kurt's moisturizing routine or whatever.

He tries to talk about the funeral to his mom when she asks, but he seems to have lost the ability to form coherent words. Most of what comes out is either a squeak or Rachel's name. So instead he points to the stairs with his thumb, indicating that he's going to bed. And it's only like eight o 'clock and usually he stays up to watch porn and stuff, but he just can't tonight. There are so many things right now where it just comes down to _I can't._

But, perhaps surprisingly or perhaps not, it doesn't take him long to fall asleep.

Revelations are a serious and exhausting business.

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><p>He thinks about going to the flower shop before school, but he wouldn't be able to give her anything until <em>after<em>school and doesn't want any flowers to be, like, dead or something when he gives it to her. So he settles for skipping his sixth period (it's nearly the end of school anyway) and driving to the flower shop then so he can make it back in time to give it to her before Jesse gets there. He already knows she got the solo because, come on, she's amazing. And even though he didn't hear her sing, he knows he wouldn't have needed to. No one is better than her. At anything, really.

It's not his fault he wants to be with her. It's not really hers, either. It's just one of those things, he guesses. She's just everything he hadn't known he'd been looking for before, and now she remains everything he's still pretending he's not searching for. But he's not gonna pretend anymore.

He's just gonna go in the auditorium, where he knows she's waiting (im)patiently to receive her news, and just tell her. Tell her that she's it for him and he's been stupid to try to act like it's ever been otherwise. And he thinks he even might tell her about how he's figured out that he's tethered to her and he hopes she still feels tethered to him too because they _can_make it work. Whenever it is that she's ready and willing and all that stuff, the details aren't that important at the moment.

His main goal here is just to present the facts. He's in love with her. Has been in love with her for a long time. And is pretty sure he's always going to be in love with her. People can talk all they want about how high school kids don't know shit about love, but they're wrong. 'Cause if that were true, he wouldn't be here right now and his heart wouldn't hurt every time he thinks about how he messed it all up with Quinn again just so he could pretend he didn't love Rachel. He just hopes the damage he's done to Rachel is repairable because he's not sure he can cope with her finally giving up on forgiving him.

So when he walks into the auditorium and sees Jesse all in Rachel's face and kissing her and her letting him, he's pretty sure this is what it feels like to have a heart attack. Except worse 'cause it's all an emotional heart attack or whatever. Why does he _always_have to be too late? And always to Jesse?

It doesn't even matter that it's not a huge kiss. What matters is that she smiles a little afterward and lets Jesse walk her away, an arm around her waist.

He lets the pink tulip he'd bought for her drop to the ground the same way his heart has dropped to his stomach. The flower was just for, like, garnishing or whatever. A physical token to help him explain everything in his heart. But what's in his heart doesn't seem to matter anymore because it doesn't look like he's in _her_heart anymore. So he knows he should let it be.

But he can't.

The same way when he was dating Quinn, and then she was dating Jesse, and then he was dating Quinn, and now she might be dating Jesse again (he really hopes not, though) that one didn't give up on the other—well, that's how it has to be now, too. Because after the first Jesse fiasco, she'd finally let him love her. And even though he _knows_ the last time he jumped into a relationship with Rachel after breaking up with Quinn it didn't work out so well, he also knows it's different this time. It has to be different because _he's_ different and _she's_ different. So _they're_different. Doesn't that make everything different?

And yeah, when they dated after Jesse had left, it technically hadn't ended so well. But they still had so many months of mostly good times and he just—he can't let that go, not yet. Not until he knows for sure that Jesse is her choice (and probably not even then, to be honest—he'll just keep it to himself because he's done enough disrespecting her). And if Jesse _isn't_her choice, then maybe it really is him and it really is them.

Don't they deserve to be happy together? She must still love him. He doesn't mean that in an arrogant way 'cause he knows plenty of people probably don't love him. But if she didn't, she wouldn't have been so supportive of him no matter what, even when it was hurting her so much. And because he knows her, he knows she can feel that tether feeling too because they've always just been on the same wavelength or whatever.

So maybe Jesse is like her Quinn; someone to be cared about deeply, but just not quite…enough. Not quite what's being looked for. Because even though it kinda bothers him because he doesn't like or trust that Jesse St. James douchebag, he knows Rachel will always care about the son of a bitch. Just like he's said he'll always care about Quinn, though he's not sure how Rachel and Quinn actually feel about each other since it seems to change all the time.

Whatever, the point is, just because his heart is breaking again doesn't mean he's willing to let it completely snap. Both he and Rachel have dealt with heartache before—and been the cause of each other's. So he'll find a way to hold on a little longer, especially since they're having a glee club meeting apparently in…fuck, like two minutes. He needs to get his ass out of the auditorium and into the choir room.

He stomps on the tulip, which is probably stupid, but a lot of things are stupid and get stomped on, so what difference does it even make?

He runs toward the choir room, doing his best to make sure it doesn't look like he'd been crying, which probably works since it's something he's become a pro at over the last five months.

How's that for pathetic?

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><p>He makes it just on time and for once he feels like Mr. Schue is finally back. There's no featured soloist—no "better than thou" and he loves the way Mr. Schue tells Jesse to just get over it. Maybe that's not exactly what he says, but whatever. It's close enough and all boils down to the same thing. Now he just hopes one of those "hit songs" is a duet for him and Rachel.<p>

Because despite whatever Doucheface St. Asshat had said, he knows they can do this. He's not New York City good by himself. But together with Rachel, they're both New York City good and then some. And music…music is everything for them. It's so much easier for them to say what needs to be said via song than to just say it out loud. On his end, it's because music and lyrics just make more sense than trying to come up with something to say. Putting all your emotion into a performance is something they've perfected.

So it's settled that while Jesse's advice may be valuable—it's not what New Directions is all about, which is exactly what he'd tried to tell everyone earlier, but of course no one had listen to him (but that's neither here nor there and he should really tell his mind to just leave the tangents alone for the time being).

Quinn is still there after everyone else leaves, so he turns to her to thank her. For being cool and stuff. "I know you're hurting right now," he says and it hurts him even to say it because he really _does_hate hurting people—any people. And he tells her how awesome it is that she decided against quitting glee club, but she has this weird smile on her face and he's not quite sure what to make of it. Granted, he never really knows what to make of much when it comes to Quinn—just like he'd told Rachel a couple weeks ago. Because she really is kind of secrective.

And then she says this weird thing about not wanting to mess up her big New York plans and he has less than no idea what that means. But before he can ask, she's already leaving.

So now he hopes he doesn't have more things to worry about. He doesn't necessarily think Quinn is out to get him or ruin his life—he'd done a pretty good job of that himself, actually. But he is worried. But it's just this gut reaction thing 'cause even though Quinn can be nice when she wants to be, she can also be not only scary but also just a little creepy. Like, in the sense that her secretiveness can freak people out sometimes.

He sighs and rubs a hand over his face 'cause this day is so much crappier than the one he'd had planned. Ideally, he would have told Rachel that he still loves her and she would fall into his arms gratefully—though he'd honestly just been expecting her to tell him that she appreciates his honesty and would let him know when she's ready to pursue a real relationship again, and he would have been okay with that. But in reality, he'd gotten to see what could have been a reconciliation between Rachel and Jesse—he reminds himself to look more closely at that and then not to think about it anymore after that.

And then he'd expected Quinn to tell him that she understands—maybe she has feelings for someone else too, he doesn't know—and for them to maybe just still be friends. He just wants to be pretty much everyone's friend as much as he can, and Quinn at least deserves that, doesn't she?

But in _that_ reality, all he'd gotten was a fearful shiver up his spine and a whole lot more confusion, which is definitely something he _doesn't_need, seeing as he'd spent the last too many months all confused and shit. And now here he is, finally sure of himself and of what he wants, only to end up more confused than he was in the first place.

Are he and Rachel really over? How can that even be possible?

Are Jesse and Rachel an item now? They didn't seem like it in the choir room.

And what is even up with Quinn? Is she always like this? Cause he doesn't remember her being quite like this. Maybe like this to a lesser extent, but still.

So now all he knows for sure is that he needs a plan. And maybe he'll talk to Kurt, since his brother is sort of a master at plans, especially when it comes to impressing people. And that's something he really needs to do to and for Rachel, but it's gotta be honest too. 'Cause he's being honest.

But they're going to New York next week and doesn't that mean that _something_has to be on his side when they get there? It's New York. It's Rachel Berry as a city. And he doesn't know what city he would be, but he hopes it's not a crappy one like Lima; he's pretty sure he wouldn't be able to bear something like that.

He scrubs his hands through his already sort-of messy hair, still sitting alone in the choir room.

But he can't even think of an answer when he asks himself how and why he let his life turn into such a mess.

But at least for once he's not crying.

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><p><em>your thoughts? :)<br>_


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